


Cherry Wine

by cecelej



Series: Voltron University [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, College AU, M/M, Military AU, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7834993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecelej/pseuds/cecelej
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro is deployed to fight in the war. Three months into his deployment he disappears. Keith is left wondering what happened to him and how to go on without him.</p><p>(Can be read as a stand alone piece!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> This is a military/college au that was originally meant to be a tiny drabble for a bigger fic I'm writing, then it turned into this.  
> It's named after the song I was listening to while writing. Cherry Wine - Hozier. If you listen while you read, it really bumps the atmosphere factor way up.

“I love you,” Shiro whispered during their embrace. He didn’t lean in for a kiss, even though he wanted to.  
“I love you, too,” Keith whispered back. His voice was thick, and he cleared his throat, trying to clear the threat of tears. His hands were fisted tight in Shiro’s beige camouflage uniform.  
They broke quickly, trying not to raise suspicion. All around them, wives and girlfriends were kissing their marines and sending them off with teary words of love.  
“Be safe out there,” Keith said, and his voice wavered. “I won’t be there to watch your back,” he joked, trying to stop the tears that he felt burning behind his eyes.  
“Not yet,” Shiro said. “But I heard the general saying that a new line of recruits are backing us in a few months. You’re the best marine in the place. You’re a shoe in.”  
Keith nodded. “You’d better hope so,” Keith said. “Who else is going to take care of you out there?” At that Shiro laughed.  
“I’ll be safe, calculated. Patience yields focus,” Shiro said, reciting what he’d been telling Keith since they first trained together almost two years ago.  
Before Keith could respond, the troops were being called for boarding.  
“Be good,” Shiro said. It was a concealed ‘I love you.”  
“I will,” Keith answered. ‘I love you too.’ 

Keith returned to the Garrison and began counting. He counted the days until Shiro’s term was up, until he came back on leave, until he could call, until Shiro would receive his first letters. Keith counted how long it might be until he himself was sent with a fresh-faced batch of marines to back up Shiro’s platoon. He counted how many workouts, how many meals, how many showers, until he could see Shiro’s face again.  
And while he counted, he worked. He worked hard. He put all of his free time into training and learning and being the best marine that the base camp had ever seen. Even in the highest and hottest Arizona sun, he was out working his body to exhaustion, working to improve.  
For three months he was waiting for the news that he would join Shiro. That countdown was put to an abrupt halt when they received word that, instead of adding to the active line that Shiro was fighting on, they’d be pulling marines from it.  
Keith tried to call, but out where Shiro was stationed, oceans away and in a near wasteland of bullets and sunshine, signals weren’t clear. He wrote Shiro letters, but they were taking to long to arrive, to be sorted, to be put into Shiro’s diligent hands. He understood why he wasn’t getting a response. A war zone wasn’t conductive to correspondence. So Keith set about waiting for an official announcement for when Shiro would be coming home.  
He didn’t wait long. Not long at all.  
Two mornings passed after the whispers of Shiro’s chance at an early arrival began circulating. Keith stood in line under the nearly rising sun. The entirety of the base’s recruits surrounding him, lined up in pretty rows, the perfect soldiers. They saluted the flag as it was hoisted high into the sky, dragging the sun up along with it. Then, as the sun continued to climb, the flag began to slowly fall.  
Keith’s eyes scrambled to the boy lowering the flag, praying that he was a maggot, that he had no idea what he was doing. But Keith recognized the guy. He’d flown the flag nearly every morning for the past six months.  
His heart sank to his stomach. He thought he would be sick. His eyes returned to the flag, just reaching half-staff, and he felt his knees shake. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a fellow trainee give him a curious, almost sympathetic gaze, and Keith straightened out, trying to stop the shaking of his saluting hand, begging his legs to keep him upright. 

“Shiro,” Keith gasped out. “Takashi Shirogane,” he specified as he skid into the main office. Behind the desk, reading a newspaper that’d been folded once too many, was an older woman in uniform. “Status of Takashi Shirogane,” Keith demanded in a strict but out of breath voice.  
The woman allowed his rudeness, if only because she could see the panic written into every line of his face. She said nothing, only handed over the newspaper.  
The paper, although folded and unfolded many times, was new, freshly delivered from the base’s newsroom that morning. Keith could tell by the wear in the pages what article had been read time and time again by those passing through the office. Keith read over the article, unable to take in the information. He could pick up only a few key phrases.  
Three marines captured. Taken behind enemy lines. Missing. Navigation error. Takashi Shirogane.  
Keith knew he’d grown pale. His skin was cold and clammy. His eyes were wide as they read the same words over and over. He couldn’t grasp any of the details. When he realized that reading it anymore was a lost cause, he clutched the paper to his chest.  
“Can I-” Keith asked, and kindly, the woman nodded.  
“Keep it,” she said. Her voice was soft with care. “It’s yours.”

Keith left the office and walked numbly onto the campus. He knew people were staring at him, a cadet walking white faced with a newspaper held tight to his chest. He looked like a ghost as he drifted past. He realized, as he walked to the barracks of the higher-ranked cadets, that he was on his way to Shiro’s door.  
Shiro’s door was already filled with messages, most of which were in the loopy handwriting of Shiro’s many female admirers. They wrote him prayers and wished for his safe return. Some messages were written on the whiteboard that was stationed to his door, others were on scrap papers that’d been secured to the door with tape.  
It made Keith’s stomach turn. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key that Shiro had left him, it hung on a key ring with his own room key. He unlocked the door and slipped inside.  
He hadn’t realized the way that he had missed the smell of Shiro until he was inside. The smell of Shiro was everywhere. He closed the door and retreated to Shiro’s bed. He wrapped his arm around Shiro’s pillow and buried his face into it. He breathed in deep, letting the smell of Shiro burn into his memory.  
He ached down to his core and felt his heart clenching and rendering him immobile. He stayed in Shiro’s room. He heard people tacking notes to the door and watched as the sun moved across Shiro’s window and turned into stars.  
He pushed himself up when the moon was deep into the sky. The crinkling of the newspaper, caught between his chest and the mattress, reminded him of all the awful things he couldn’t take in earlier. He shook out the paper, and one more time, he read the numbing news.  
They were blaming Shiro for the disappearances, an error in navigation. In other words, they’d accused him of being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. It wasn’t like Shiro. He followed instructions down to the very last word. Unless he absolutely had to deviate from the path, he wouldn’t. They played it like he was just a curious boot and Keith felt deep in his bones that something wasn’t right.  
He tore the article from the paper and stuffed it into his chest pocket. He looked around the empty room as he stood. It was neat, tidy, everything in its place, just the way a marine’s room was supposed to be. But it wasn’t like that when Shiro lived there. He liked to keep things ‘lived in,’ a book on the side table, a jacket slung over his desk chair, bed unmade for as long as he could keep it that way. Keith put the rest of the paper on the end table. He left the bed covering wrinkled, his body print still curled there.  
He wiped his eyes before leaving and was surprised to find them dry. When he opened the door, he knocked over a can of cheap beer that’d been left out front. He closed the door, and knelt to right the can. It was still cool to the touch, a note stuck to the condensation.  
‘A cold one for when you get back. –Mike.’  
“Sorry,” a voice said, startling Keith, whose shaky hands once again knocked over the can. “I didn’t know you were in there. I wouldn’t have left that out front if I knew.”  
It was Shiro’s neighbor, Mike. They’d met a few times, mostly in passing.  
“I wasn’t,” Keith began, but he knew he’d been caught. “It’s fine.”  
“I’m really sorry, this must be hard on you,” Mike said earnestly.  
“Yeah, it’s hard on us all,” Keith said, once again righting the can.  
“You specifically,” Mike said.  
“It’s not like that,” Keith said sternly. He stood, glaring at Mike, challenging him to say something else.  
“Okay,” Mike said, raising his hands in surrender. “But either way, I hope they find him.”  
“They will,” Keith answered with a surety that even he wasn’t expecting. Mike nodded before disappearing behind his own door.  
The next morning Keith was first in line for the newspaper. The only information on the missing marines was a short article announcing a search and rescue that’d been put into action. Keith kept up with all the news from that point on, clipping pieces of papers, writing down whispers that he’d heard in the halls or during training. All information was important.  
Time passed, and Keith had begun counting again. Counting the days, the nights, the articles, the photos, anything that collected while Shiro was missing. His room was cluttered with notebooks and boxes that he’d filled with anything that might make sense of Shiro’s disappearance. He received punishments and citations for missing basic training, for ignoring office hours, for not doing his duties as a cadet, but he couldn’t force himself to commit to those things anymore. He was deep in his own conspiracies. He was pushing himself to find something, a clue, anything. Anything to keep his mind off the rotting feeling that curled deep in his teeth, his stomach, his head, the rotting feeling of missing someone to death. So he kept busy with what could keep him busy and ignored the higher ups who threatened his standing in the military.  
They’d called off the search and rescue three weeks after Shiro and the others went missing. They’d found only a scrap of cloth that belong to an American uniform. That was all, just the smallest sign that someone American had been through the barren land that they were searching. And Keith knew, even though the cloth was the same as every other uniform, that it was Shiro’s. He knew it in his gut, and it gave him both relief and a more urgent worry. He’s still alive, he reasoned, but they have him, he argued with himself.  
But bad news came in threes. Keith knew that much. He’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d had a looming feeling that worse was coming, that worse had happened. Then, he figured, after the last of the bad had surfaced, he could hope for the real good news.  
Keith had been the first in line for the newspaper, just like the past twelve weeks. Only this time, he didn’t have to flip pages and search the smallest bylines in order to dig up anything on the missing marines. On the front page, printed in black and white, sprawling across the first half of the page, was a photo of a hacked off limb.  
The tattered uniform was of the same material that all the marines wore. It was the same as the patch that’d been found in the desert. The arm was pale and bloody. The fingers bent at unnatural angles. A tangle of dog tags were wrapped around the bruised palm, a palm that Keith had held a thousand times, a palm that Keith had kissed and known and been held by.  
Keith felt sick, his stomach roiling and churning from the picture that he couldn’t look away from. His own skin had gone pale and a cold sweat crawled down his neck.  
“Better get used to it,” the man behind him in the news line said. He was looking at the same picture. “That shit happens all the time over there. Trust me, I’m on leave. A shame too, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” The guy paused to read the name in the article. “Shirogane, that’s right.”  
YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HIS NAME. I KNEW HIM. Keith wanted to yell, but he was still fighting back the bile that was rising in his throat. I KNEW HIM INTIMATELY. He wanted to scream. I LOVED HIM.  
He couldn’t do that though. It didn’t matter if he could bite back the bile or not. He couldn’t tell anyone about the two of them. Don’t ask. Don’t Tell. While it wasn’t an acting policy anymore, it still held voice, and Keith wouldn’t let anyone think less of Shiro for it.  
Keith stumbled out the door, realizing that he couldn’t swallow down what was coming up. He threw up into the bushes by the front doors and said nothing when the man walked by, shaking his head.  
Keith wiped his mouth and sunk onto the stone steps in front of the building. He smoothed the paper out on his lap and read the article from start to stop.  
The dog tags wrapped around the palm of the amputated arm served to identify the arm as Shiro’s. They’d pronounced the three missing Marines dead. And not only were they abandoning all hope that the any of the three were still out there somewhere, they were pulling troops from the area. They were leaving them there.  
It wasn’t long after that that Keith’s phone began ringing in his pocket. The only person who ever called him was Shiro. He desperately tore the Velcro on his pocket apart to get to the phone. There was an unknown number on the screen and he quickly accepted the call.  
“Hello?” He asked, his voice cracking with worry and desperation.  
“Hey, is this Keith?” It was Mike, Shiro’s neighbor, on the other line. Keith fought the urge to throw the phone.  
“Yeah,” Keith answered, his voice returning to a tired monotone.  
“I thought you might want to know, they’re going through Shiro’s room,” Mike answered.  
“What?!” Keith asked, anger rising in his voice.  
“Yeah, some officers are here. They’re clearing it out. Probably going to send his things back to his mom’s house.”  
Keith hung up the phone and began running toward Shiro’s room. His lungs burned and his muscles yelled as he pushed himself as fast as he could. He came skidding into Shiro’s building and bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs, taking them two at a time. He passed Mike in the stare well, on his way to the morning salute, but didn’t offer a thanks, or even a hello. He just whipped open the door to Shiro’s floor and kept running. He skidded to a stop as he approached the group of four officers who were carrying boxes out of Shiro’s room. They stopped to look at him, sweaty from running, wild eyed and red faced.  
“W-what are you doing?” Keith asked, anger thick in his voice.  
The officers looked back and forth between each other, unsure what to say to the stranger who stood before them. Finally, a female officer stepped up.  
“We’re cleaning out a room that’s no longer in use,” she said dully.  
“That’s Takashi Shirogane’s room,” Keith said back, his tone accusatory.  
“We know,” the woman said coldly.  
“Don’t you have any respect?” Keith asked bitterly, his voice sharp and cold as icicles.  
“Don’t you?” She spat back. She was ranked higher than him, he could tell by the patch she wore on her uniform.  
“He’s a hero,” Keith said. “And you’re clearing out his things? Casting him off? Like he never existed?”  
“He’s not a hero,” the woman said. “He got two of his teammates captured. He should have been where he was supposed to be, and none of this would have happened. He should have followed orders.”  
“Shiro always follows orders!” Keith raised his voice at her. “They’re not telling us the truth!”  
“Not telling us the truth? The guy had his arm sawed off. You think our side did that? What, just to get a rise out of us?” The woman asked, she put her hands on her hips and sneered at Keith. “I’m sure the general would love to hear your theories,” she continued. “He’ll tell you the facts. Hell, his son was there. He could tell you first hand. They’re all dead because of that Shirogane kid. Now go back to your station, before I send you to solitary.”  
Shame burned in Keith’s face. It wasn’t his own shame. It was shame in whatever was going on. It was shame because Shiro deserved nothing less than hero worship. He was ashamed of the officers who agreed with the woman arguing with him.  
Keith advanced and the officers all tensed, ready for a fight. He passed by all of them and they watched, dumbfounded as he slipped seamlessly from the room.  
“Hey!” The female officer said, jumping to follow Keith into the room. “You can’t go in there!”  
Keith didn’t answer, he just grabbed an old sweater out of the open closet. It was what Shiro always wore when they went to the neighboring town, and the smell of Shiro was still sitting deep in the threads and stitches.  
Over the past twelve weeks, Keith had snuck into Shiro’s room, just to lie in his bed and smell him in the sheets. Over the twelve weeks, Shiro’s bed began to smell more like Keith than it did of Shiro. Keith had dug into his closet, wearing Shiro’s sweaters and sweatpants until they too lost the smell of Shiro. He’d been saving this sweater, making sure not to touch it, not to breath on it, lest it catch his scent.  
“Hey!” the woman said again, and again Keith ignored her.  
He moved Shiro’s desk chair and pulled down a sealed envelope that was taped to the bottom of the desk. Shiro had told Keith where the envelope was, and though neither of said it, they both knew what he meant by telling Keith. If something happens to me, don’t let them have it.  
With the sweater and envelope tucked under his arm, he saluted the officers.  
“You can’t take things from this room! It’s not an estate sale!” The woman shouted after Keith as he made his way down the hall. To his surprise, none of the officers stopped him by force.  
When Keith got back to his room, he sat at his own desk. His hands trembled around the envelope in his hands.  
He’s dead, Keith thought. And he pushed it down, just like he had tried to push down his vomit earlier that day. But it just wouldn’t stay down. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead, Keith chanted to himself as he mindlessly taped the envelope to the bottom of his own desk.  
He shrugged on Shiro’s sweatshirt. He could feel holes tearing in his chest and stomach and head, it was grief, like bubbles that popped and filled him with acid until they ate right through him, but even more than that, it was relief.  
And for the first time, Keith’s face was wet with tears. He barked out a sob, loud and wet and a long time coming. He sobbed until his tears had dampened the sleeves of Shiro’s black sports sweatshirt. It was too big on Keith, but he didn’t care. He lifted the hood and pulled the neckline up over his nose. He curled in on himself, lowering himself to the floor and laying there while he sobbed. Sobbed for the pain of loss, and sobs for the guilt of relief. Relief for his boyfriend’s death. Relief that Shiro, brave, diligent, heroic Shiro, was dead. Relief that he was safe. Relief that he was no longer in pain. Relief that there was nothing else to worry over. And guilt. Guilt for wishing all this time that Shiro was still alive, and not thinking of the awful things that were happening to him while he was away. Torture. He was wishing the torture would last.  
Keith knew that he would have to get up off the floor at some point. He would have to stop crying. He would have to wash his face and take a shower and return to the life he had before Shiro left, the same life, the same routine, the same days and the same nights, but this time, without Shiro. But for now, he was resigned to the floor, unsure of when or how he would ever get up.  
A few days later, and he was still in his room, no longer on the floor, no longer crying, but unable to leave the room. He was still in Shiro’s sweater. He was lying in bed, curled up to the wall, when the knocking began.  
He didn’t answer, sure that whatever higher-up was standing on the other side, would recognize his silence as an absence, and the whispers of Keith Kogane going AWOL would circulate the base. He planned to lie in bed until they forcibly removed him from the room, just as they’d done with all of the things from Shiro’s room.  
The knocking started again, quick and hard raps at the door.  
‘Be good,’ Shiro’s voice echoed in Keith’s head, and he had to fight back a wave of loud sobs, so that the person waiting outside wouldn’t hear him. He covered his mouth and stayed completely silent and still. Shiro would be disappointed in him. But Shiro was dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead, Keith chanted again.  
The knocking started once more. This time, followed by a voice.  
“Hey, Keith. It’s me. Mike. I just. I have something for you.”  
Keith looked toward the door. He didn’t want anything that Mike had to offer. Again, he didn’t answer.  
Mike knocked again.  
“Keith, I know you’re in there,” he said. ‘No you don’t,’ Keith thought. “I have something for you, but, it’s not,” Mike paused, huffing a loud sigh. He began speaking in a stage whisper. “I’ve got some friends in the mailing office. I have something for you.”  
This peaked Keith’s interest. Immediately he stood, his legs feeling weak beneath him. He threw open the door and looked blankly at Mike.  
Keith could tell from Mike’s expression that he didn’t look good. His eyes were red rimmed from tears and dark circles sat heavy beneath them. His hair was greasy and matted from lying around for so long. He must have looked gaunt in his sorrow. Keith said nothing, and waited for Mike to show him what he had.  
“Do you mind if I come in?” Mike asked, advancing, and Keith stepped out of his way. It was obvious that Mike was hiding something under his uniform jacket. The buttons on the lower half were popping open and based on the three sharp corners that bulged from the material, Keith had a good idea of what it was.  
He eagerly closed the door behind Mike and for the first time spoke.  
“Is that?”  
Before he could finish, Mike had popped the buttons of his jacket open, and a blue field of stars peered out at Keith from behind their glass case. A folded flag, cased and sealed. Keith’s heart surged in his chest and he reached out for it. Mike didn’t hesitate in handing it over.  
“Apparently, there was a ceremony, but it was super private. This was going to be sent to his mother, but, well, I thought that you deserved it.” Keith was going to stop him, to say that his mother wasn’t a bad person, just distant. He was going to say the flag was rightfully hers, but Mike continued. “Not that his mother doesn’t deserve it,” he corrected. “But I’m sure they’ll have their own funeral, their own flag. No one wants two of these things floating around.”  
“Thank you,” Keith said, hugging it close to his chest.  
“There’s something else,” Mike said. “I’m not sure you’ll want to see it.”  
Keith wasn’t sure what else it could be. But he knew if it was Shiro’s he wanted to see it.  
“Show me,” Keith demanded.  
Mike reached into the chest pocket of his jacket and drew out a long metal chain. Before it was out of his pocket, Keith knew what it was, the set of dog tags that had been found wrapped around Shiro’s arm.  
Keith grabbed for them, yanking the tags out of Mike’s pocket in haste.  
There was still blood crusted in the indented lines.  
In one arm, he cradled the folded flag, in the other, he clutched the dog tags, bringing them up to his face and kissing them once. He forced his eyes closed hard, fighting the tears that wanted to break the line of his lashed. He bowed his head.  
“Thank you, Mike,” Keith said. He just barely managed to speak through the tears he was fighting and his voice was still muffled by his hand, still clutching the dog tags in front of his mouth.  
“Listen, I know this isn’t the right time,” Mike began again, and Keith looked back up at him, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “But I think something weird is going on.”  
“Weird?” Keith asked.  
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I don’t know how to describe it. But, they say this was Shiro’s fault. That he was out somewhere where he wasn’t supposed to be. But, I used to room with Shiro. We’re friends. Or, we were friends,” the past tense burned on Keith’s ears. “It just doesn’t sound like him. He was always so safe, so smart. He wouldn’t go against orders. I just, feel like, I’m sorry. This must sound crazy. It must be grief or something.”  
Keith’s eyebrows had knit together as he listened. “Yeah,” Keith said. “Must be grief,” he lied.  
“Hey, I’ll see you around then?” Mike said, trying to laugh off his paranoid thoughts. Keith nodded, heading to the door to hold it open for him. He watched Mike retreat down the hall, and a twinge of guilt hit his stomach.  
“Hey, Mike,” Keith called, and Mike turned back, his hands buried deep in his pockets.  
“I’m working on it, okay?” Keith said. He watched as Mike’s expression turned from confusion, to shocked recognition.  
“If you need anything,” Mike offered.  
“I know where to find you.”

That’s when Keith got up. He showered and ate a square meal. He made his bed and put the folded flag on his bedside table. He folded Shiro’s sweater and put it in it’s own drawer, hoping it would hold onto the feint smell of Shiro that it still carried. Last, he draped the dog tags over his own neck.  
It felt good to have the cold metal on his chest and to know that there was something touching him that Shiro had touched, the last thing Shiro had touched before he’d died. It still had a trace of Shiro on it and Keith knew this was the closest he would ever feel to Shiro ever again.  
He returned to his schedule, to training, to workouts, to scheduled meetings, to office hours.  
That’s when the fights started. In training, when the cadets would talk about how Shiro hadn’t been the hero they thought he was. During workouts, when sparring partners would challenge him to defend Shiro’s honor. During meetings, when he heard disrespectful whispers about Shiro. Even during office hours, when the gossip swirled in and out of the office doors. He won and he lost, but he mostly won. And he’d been reprimanded time after time for drawing first blood. Nobody reprimanded the others for their disrespect. Nobody cared about another fallen soldier.  
Finally, Keith decided enough was enough. He wouldn’t put up with the disrespect, with the lies. He was going to find out what really happened. He knew asking wasn’t an option. The only answers he would get were the ones that’d been published in the paper. The only story he would hear would be that of the soldier who went where he shouldn’t have.  
And that was how he found himself riffling through file cabinets in the middle of the night. Confidential. The big letters were stamped in thick red ink on every file, every piece of paper, but it wasn’t close to what he was looking for. He was looking for something current, and all the paper files were archives from ten years ago, at the earliest.  
He’d stood in the dark, working the locks on the cabinets until his fingers were sore and callused but it was all for nothing. He sighed heavily, rubbing his tired eyes. There had to be something in the General’s office that pointed to Shiro, something that would light Keith’s trail. Keith could feel that it was there.  
He sat down in the large desk chair in the lush office. Unlike the rolling desk chairs in most of the rooms, this chair was stationary, high backed, and heavy. Keith sat up rod straight with the sturdy back support. His arm knocked the mouse pad on the desk, and the large mac monitor lit up his face, asking for a password.  
Keith was good with computers. He could take them apart and put them together, and build bits out of their parts, but he wasn’t a hacker. He didn’t know what people typically used as passwords. He didn’t know any personal information about the General. So, he began looking around, seeing if the password was written on a scrap paper in the drawers, taped to the hard drive or the bottom of the desk. Nothing. He saw a picture of a woman who was, presumably, the General’s wife. But nothing gave away her name or birthday or anything that the General might make a password. Keith scanned the dusty books for titles that might be passwords, but nothing worked.  
He sat, bowed forward, his head in his hands, knowing that the answers were hidden on the computer before him.  
“Think, think, think! What would the General use as a password?” Keith nagged at himself.  
‘Patience yields focus,’ Shiro’s voice swam in Keith’s head.  
Keith sat up straight, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.  
“Patience yields focus,” he repeated to himself. And he waited a tick, trying to be calm, trying to invite the answer into his mind.  
“Meghan,” he finally said, looking to the second picture on the desk, one of the General’s two children. “His daughter’s name is Meghan.” He remembered Shiro talking about it, Shiro talking about kids.  
‘The general’s daughter was born, Meghan. 21 years younger than his son. An April baby,’ Shiro had said. ‘I prefer fall birthdays, like yours.’  
‘Meghan0415’ Keith typed, and the password screen melted away, reveling the desktop.  
He opened up the documents folder and searched Takashi Shirogane.  
And there it was, amongst the results, ‘Rescue Mission. Failed. Classified.”  
Light blinded Keith. It washed the whole room in sickly fluorescents. Keith lifted an arm, shielding his eyes from the harsh change. Uniformed men rushed in, taking him by the arms before he had the chance to fight back.  
“Keith Kogane,” a man said as he entered behind his troops. “I should have expected a visit from you.”  
The man, burly and fearsome, wore an eye patch. His voice was like gravel. Even now, at close to three in the morning, he was in full uniform, not a single wrinkle on the fabric. The patch on his uniform alerted everyone who saw that this man was to be respected and saluted. The general.  
“Sir,” Keith said. The two men who held his arms behind his back saluted. Keith settled for lowering his head, but not his gaze.  
“Takashi Shirogane’s right hand man,” the general taunted. Keith kept a level head, his expression stony and calm. “His protégé. What would Shiro think if his boy was going to be tried for treason?”  
This struck some fear in Keith. He wasn’t a traitor, he wasn’t going against his nation. He was just looking for answers, answers for his boy.  
“Now, I’m not going to do that. I know why you’re here. Greif, it shows itself in funny ways. And a man of your, inclination, must be finding it exceedingly difficult to cope with,” the general said. He’d picked up a glass paperweight from his desk and was rolling it around in his hands like a baseball, tossing it up into the air now and again before catching it’s heavy weight in his palm.  
He knew, Keith realized. His face went red, though he kept his stagnant expression. He knew about Shiro and me, and he knows about Shiro now.  
“What happened to those marines?” Keith said through gritted teeth. “What happened to Shiro?”  
The general came to sit on the desk before Keith. He set the paperweight back down and leaned in closer to Keith.  
“If I tell you, will you keep it to yourself?” He asked. “Will you stop digging?”  
Keith nodded, desperate to hear what the general had to say, knowing deep in his gut that something wasn’t right.  
“Shiro deviated from his mission, curious about the whores of the local village. He deceived two other marines into following him, and when they were caught, they were tortured to death, because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.”  
Keith kept a straight face, not wanting to know that the words had wrenched his ribs and shook up his heart.  
“I’ll keep digging. I’ll find out what happened to Shiro.”  
“No you won’t,” the general said, with a smirk. “Because if you’re found within 100 miles of this base, you’ll be sent to a maximum security prison.”  
Keith’s eyes narrowed in anger. He knew exactly what was happening. He was being silenced. He was too close to the answers, and the General wouldn’t have that.  
“You’ve officially been released from the Marine Corps. We’ll remove anything that we find on your person. Then you’ll be escorted to your room to collect your things. If you aren’t well past the base’s gates by sun up, you will be tried for treason against the united states military.”  
For the first time, Keith hung his head. It was over now. He’d lost Shiro. He’d lost the chance for Shiro’s redemption. He’d lost his career and his home.  
The only thing he could be thankful for at the moment, was that he’d left Shiro’s dog tags in his room, taped up beside Shiro’s sealed envelope. The only thing they could take was a small notepad, his phone, and a flashlight. He carried nothing else on him.  
“Let’s hope you pack as light as you carry,” An unnamed and uniformed man said as they walked back to Keith’s room. “I could still get a few hours of sleep before morning salute.” He was being arrogant, but Keith didn’t respond.  
In his room, Keith filled his duffle bag to the brim. It was the duffle he’d brought with him when he first started at the Garrison. It’d been pathetically empty when he’d arrived. Now, it just barely zipped. Even still, most of the items filling the bag were Shiro’s. He started with Shiro’s sweatshirt, his envelope, his dog tags. Then everything else went in, and last, Keith carefully placed the folded flag in the top of the bag, and zipped it with caution. It’d taken him less that twenty minutes and the room was completely bare. He grabbed his pillow, shaking the Garrison pillowcase off it before tucking it under his arm. Two cadets had watched as he packed, another set waiting outside the door in case Keith got violent, but he never did. He’d accepted his fate. They walked him to the main gate but he crossed it alone.  
He was officially a free man. But he had nowhere to go, no one to go to. He hitched a ride to a bus station, and from there, he decided to go east. He’d never seen anything beside the barren deserts of Arizona. He’d talked about taking a trip out east with Shiro when they were done serving. He slid the dog tags back over his neck, and sat the folded flag on his lap.  
“Here we go, baby,” Keith whispered in the dark and nearly empty bus. “All the way to the Atlantic ocean.” 

Keith’s wet boots soaked into the dark carpet. He still wasn’t used to the snow and his toes were cold. His nose was running and he sniffled in the hot office air. His cheeks were red from wind. His fingers were pressed between his jean-clad thighs, trying to thaw them out.  
“Keith Kogane?” A secretary asked, peaking into the waiting room. “The dean will see you now.”  
Keith nodded, standing and grabbing his bag as he made his way to the large wooden doors that led to the Dean’s office.  
“Keith Kogane,” the Dean said, standing to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. It’s rare that we get a student who prefers the spoken interview rather than the essay. It’s nice to see a student going the extra mile.”  
The dean was a tall woman, soft at the hips, her hair cut in a short bob that curled by her ears. She wore cat-eye glasses on a chain around her neck and was dressed in a sharp blazer and pencil skirt. She had the potential to have a cold look about her, but her soft smile made her eyes crinkle in a caring way.  
“Face to face leaves a better impression,” Keith said, giving her his most charming smile. It’s what she wanted to hear. He only came to the meeting because he didn’t think a college would even consider him with a near dishonorable discharge on his record, not if he only had 250 words to explain himself.  
For a long while they rambled about this and that, things that colleges wanted to know of the good prospect students. He knew what question was looming and he was prepared. He was going to lie. He wasn’t going to say he was discharged because the military was involved in a cover up that painted his boyfriend as an incompetent and insolent fool. He wasn’t going to say that he would never find true happiness, or even contentment, until he found out what happened to the man he loved. He wasn’t going to say that he’d snuck into an official office in a search for information. He wasn’t going to say that he suspected the General at Garrison was personally linked to the whole affair. He was going to lie.  
He could feel the air shift in the room when the Dean was about to ask the question, the whole room felt heavy, and for the first time, he felt nervous.  
“So, I see here that you were discharged from the army,” she said, prompting him for an answer.  
“The marines, actually,” Keith began. “But yes. I was going through a rough patch. My boyfriend had just been killed at war. Tortured to death,” Keith hated saying these words, hated the way they sounded on his tongue, but in order for anyone to understand his behavior, this was what he had to say. “We were together in secret, so no one knew why I stopped tending to my duties. People assumed I’d just gone AWOL, or was having a rebellious phase. But I was mourning, and I had no one to turn to.” This was where the lying would fit in, where he’d rehearsed it to sound genuine. “In my grief, I convinced myself that the General was hiding information from me. As if he had a personal vendetta against me, or my boyfriend, I’m not really sure. So, I did some things that I shouldn’t have done. I couldn’t fully explain the situation, because my boyfriend could have had honors stripped from him had they known about us. So, I let them do what they had to in order to keep his dignity and honor in tact. Had I been in a state of mind to ask for help at the time, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. But I’ve been working through it. I’ve gotten the help I’ve needed.” This was still a lie, something that sounded proactive and heartbreaking and maybe endearing to the Dean, who offered her condolences.  
He would get in. He could tell from the compassionate look in the Dean’s eyes that he would. Not to mention, the school was lacking in science majors and he was a prime candidate for the courses. He didn’t want to go to college, but he’d found a loophole in his military contract that promised him a full ride to any college he chose, even with his unsightly discharge, and he couldn’t ride busses cross country forever. There was only so much country to travel across. So, when he’d gotten to the east coast, he settled in New England. He’d rented a small bedroom in an apartment that came with a loud roommate, and had been staying there for four months now.  
He’d sent Shiro’s mother his condolences for missing the funeral, but he couldn’t bare to see anyone who knew about him and Shiro. He wanted to live in solitude. He wanted to isolate himself. It was late winter now, and the snow was as heavy as it was going to get. He shoveled the driveway in the morning, and then left for his job, serving coffee to cranky business people. Then came home. It was almost more of a strict routine than the one he’d obeyed at the base. But in his freedoms, some things had changed. He’d begun sleeping later than four am. He went to the gym only when he felt like it, though he felt like it almost everyday. He sometimes wandered town at night, no permission needed, no paperwork. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody needed to.  
He hadn’t ever been this alone before. Even as a child, he had at least had foster parents, or kids who bullied him in school. But now, the closest thing he had to either was his roommate, who he despised for living the life of an average 20 year old.  
He found himself gravitating toward Shiro’s sealed envelope every now and again, tempted to open it like he never used to be. ‘It was Shiro’s. It wouldn’t be right to open it,’ Keith reasoned. ‘He’s dead,’ Keith answered in his head. ‘He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead,” Keith chanted, only now, it felt less like a desperate reminder. It felt now like he was trying to convince himself of it. It’d been so long since he’d seen Shiro, and he was in such a different place, that Keith wondered if he’d made Shiro up in the first place. He knew, logically, that it wasn’t true. He wasn’t insane. But sometime, at night, Keith found it hard to believe that someone like Shiro had existed, or that Keith once didn’t feel so shut down and empty.  
Shiro’s blood had long since chipped out of the nooks of the dog tags. His sweater stopped smelling of him. But had there ever been blood? Had there ever been a smell besides Keith’s? It all felt so far away and anyone could get a folded flag that was all cased up.  
Keith could still remember his face, but his voice was leaving his head. ‘Patience yields focus,’ recited in his head, but the voice sounded much too much like Keith’s own. He tried to remember ‘I love you,’ or ‘Be good,’ but it was all the same. It was always Keith’s voice.  
After nights and nights of this wondering, he finally couldn’t take it anymore. He tore into the sealed envelope. It was fat with whatever was inside, and Keith was tired of second guessing, of thinking, maybe, somehow, that it had never been real.  
He dumped the contents onto his desk, they all slid out in unison, shaded by the darkness of Keith’s bedroom. Switching on a lamp, Keith watched as the stacks of letters and photos and keepsakes were illuminated. And there, smiling up at Keith, was Shiro’s beaming face.  
Polaroids from what felt like hundreds of years ago lay on the desk, photos of Shiro and photos of Keith, though most photos were of both boys. Each one was paper clipped to a letter, or a movie stub, or a receipt, and Shiro’s blocky handwriting was all over everything. Love letters, Keith realized, love letters that Shiro was waiting to give to him.  
Keith sat down at his desk and began reading. He read about dates they’d gone on. He read about when Shiro first realized he was falling in love with Keith. Shiro wrote about Keith, and he wrote about the future, and he wrote about love, and Garrison, and promises. Keith shook as he read each letter. He kept a sleeve of his sweater pushed to his cheeks to catch tears before they fell on the old Garrison stationary or the glossy pictures.  
It was all real. Here was the proof. And Keith thought it was almost worse this way. ‘It’s real, it’s real, it’s real,’ Keith chanted, followed shortly after with ‘He’d dead. He’s dead. He’s really dead.’  
But Keith went on. 

School was nothing like the military. It was all loose rules and useless assignments and no respect. It was arguing a grade, and pushing the due dates, and making friends.  
Keith did not make friends. He lived in a single dorm room and never talked in class unless absolutely necessary. He brought his food from the cafeteria to his dorm and never sat in the green, even though the summer semester was filled with beautiful days.  
He got good grades and smiled when people smiled at him. His professors like him alright and he never had to talk about his time in the marines. He was doing fine.  
The summer had been hot, especially when the dorms didn’t have air conditioning, but he spend half of his time out of his room anyway. He had a full course of summer classes and worked in between that. He found that, even with a full schedule, he had plenty of time to work on his studies. Not only that but he had plenty of free time on his hands. He spent it all alone in his room, using his library-borrowed laptop to search mindlessly for any news on Shiro’s failed mission. There was never anything. Keith could barely pull up the news article that the base had written, or the picture they had taken of Shiro’s arm.  
“You know,” a voice said from behind Keith. Keith whirled around toward his open door, slamming his laptop shut. “If you use a different computer, you can pull up a bunch more than what that one does.”  
The person standing in the doorway was short, with mousy brown hair that fell in a messy fashion around their face. They wore big, round glasses, and had on an oversized hoody that hid their figure completely.  
“My door’s open for the breeze,” Keith said, sharply. “Not to invite anyone walking by.”  
They ignored him and stepped into the room, pulling the laptop close and flipping it back open. “Actually,” they said, beginning to bring up a few options menus.  
“What do you think you’re doing?” Keith asked.  
“Upgrading you,” they answered, their fingers still working quickly over the keys. “The library has a safety search on all their laptops. But you can bypass it without them catching on. Probably.”  
Keith’s cheeks went slightly pink. He should have thought of that. He was a computer science major. He really shouldn’t have had that oversight. He knew how to bypass safety options. He’d learned how to get around them seamlessly when he was bouncing from foster home to foster home. A growing boy needed an open Internet browser.  
“There,” they said. Sliding the computer back toward Keith as the page loaded, and loading quickly onto the screen was the original photo he’d been trying to find. A full color, HD picture, of the arm they’d found in the desert. “Oh, wow. Maybe some people need the safety search on,” they mumbled.  
“It’s not,” Keith began, but then he stopped. He didn’t have to explain himself to them. But the kid stayed there, looking at the picture. Keith sighed heavily. “We were in the same base camp.”  
“My dad and my brother were in the military,” they said, their expression turning a little sad. “Dad’s back because of an injury. My brother, well, he’s not back yet.”  
Keith turned back to his laptop, staring at the picture, for the fist time ever seeing the blood and bruises in color. Then he slammed his laptop closed.  
“I’m Pidge, by the way,” they said, ignoring Keith’s silence. “Hey, you’re in my engineering class class, aren’t you?”  
“I don’t know,” Keith said, turning to see Pidge wandering around the room. They stopped at the folded flag sitting on Keith’s dresser and looked at the polaroids scattered before it. Keith waited for Pidge to ask, but they didn’t.  
“10:20, Monday Wednesday Friday?” Pidge asked, moving on from the dresser and plopping down on Keith’s bed.  
“Yeah,” Keith answered. “I guess so.”  
“Keith, right?” Pidge asked. “You’re the one who refused to do the ice-breaker activities.”  
“That’s me,” Keith said.  
“You’re really smart,” Pidge said.  
“Not really,” Keith answered. “That class barely covers the most basic properties of engineering.”  
Pidge laughed at that. “I know, right?” They asked. “Hey, I hear that there’s a robotics team that starts up in the fall. You gonna join it?”  
“I don’t really do teams,” Keith answered.  
And that was all it took. Pidge became a friend, or what Keith assumed was one. They sometimes ate dinner together in the cafeteria, when Pidge could catch Keith in time. Other times, Pidge invited themselves into Keith’s room, sitting on his bed and babbling as Keith preoccupied himself with other things. Pidge liked to sit in the quad and would sometimes force Keith into going. This was by far their most popular event, going down to the quad once or twice a week. Pidge would sometimes bring a Frisbee or a hacky sack and Keith would humor them by playing. Most days though, they just sat in the shade of one of the many maple trees and did homework or tinkered with whatever parts that Pidge brought along.  
Even when the fall semester began, and more students were around for Pidge to talk to and befriend, they still stuck around Keith, dragging him out of his room twice a week. The quad was nicer in the fall, busier, but not so hot. The leaves were falling in crunchy piles and gathering by the base of the surrounding buildings. The cooling air brushed pleasantly along their exposed arms.  
On this particular day, Keith had stretched out in a sunny patch, laying on his back and watching the clouds pass with his arms crossed beneath his head. Pidge had a small screwdriver and was taking pieces out of an old VHS player. They babbled on, Keith throwing in a monosyllabic answer every now and again.  
“Keith?” the voice shot through Keith like an arrow, a thousands arrows, each tipped with the voice of a dead man. He was frozen on the spot, his muscles so stiff that he felt too heavy for the earth, like it would swallow him up right there.  
Pidge turned, looking at the person who stood against the sunlight, looming over the two.  
“Hi,” they said, a big smile on their face and waving a screwdriver in a friendly hello.  
“Hi,” the voice said, smiling, at Pidge. This time, the voice lifted Keith. He scrambled to his feet and stared at the man in front of him. The man with the voice he thought he’d forgotten.  
“Shiro,” Keith choked out.  
Pidge watched with curiosity. Keith and the stranger stood about two feet apart, just looking at each other for a long time. Keith’s body was tight, coiled up, and the man who stood across from him was relaxed, everything in his body language looking relieved.  
“Shiro,” Keith choked out once more, unsure what else to say.  
“Can I,” Shiro began to ask, coming closer in a hesitant way, like Keith was a scared wild animal.  
Before he could finish asking, Keith launched into him, wrapping his arms around Shiro and nearly toppling him over. And it was different to hug him now. Shiro was wider and harder with muscle. His jaw, where Keith had nuzzled his face a thousand times before, was sharper, digging into Keith’s cheek. And his arms, his arm. One arm wrapped around Keith as hard as it could, the other was gone. It was just, gone.  
They sunk to the grassy ground, still holding each other. Pidge stood, gathering their bag, and picking up the gutted VHS player.  
“I’ll just give you guys some time,” they said, stepping out of the way and heading back to their dorm. But neither Keith nor Shiro answered, or even heard them.  
“You were dead,” Keith whispered into Shiro’s neck.  
“I’m so sorry,” Shiro said, and Keith jerked back, looking Shiro in the eye.  
“Sorry?! What are you sorry for?” Keith asked.  
“I was gone for so long. You must have been so worried,” Shiro answered.  
Keith didn’t answer him. It was a battle he knew he couldn’t win. Shiro would always take the blame, a humble hero.  
“Look at you,” Keith said, running his hands through Shiro’s hair. The fringe that hung down in front of his eyes had been blanched from black to white. His feint freckles were obstructed by a long, thick scar running below his eyes, across his nose. Whatever had caused it had been deep and painful and Keith’s heart jumped at the thought of Shiro being put through that. “What happened to you?” Keith asked compassionately.  
“I’m not supposed to tell you,” Shiro said, and Keith was going to tell him that was okay, even though it wasn’t okay, because Shiro was the dutiful soldier, because Shiro did what the United States Military expected of him. “We were on a covert rescue mission, I told the General I’d get his son. His stupid son. And they blew up my Humvee. And his son was the only one who got back, said he was heading the mission. He was embarrassed because he’d gotten himself stuck in the village. But, the rest. It’s all a blur. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t remember.”  
“That’s okay, that’s okay,” Keith whispered, pulling Shiro in close again. “You don’t have to remember, you’re safe now, you’re home.” And it was true. Shiro was home and, finally, Keith was home. It was a feeling that Keith didn’t think he’d ever feel again, but in the halo of their embrace, Keith felt full and complete once again.  
Keith wanted nothing more than to kiss Shiro, but he was seized by uncertainty. He felt the need to ask, but he couldn’t handle it if Shiro said no. So, he ducked his face closer to the crook of Shiro’s neck, breathing in the smell of him. It was there, the smell he remembered, but it was covered by the scent of travel.  
“Come on,” Keith said, pulling away begrudgingly. He stood, his hands never leaving Shiro’s. He pulled Shiro up gently, careful not to throw the boy off balance. “We’ll go to my room. You can wash up.”  
Shiro nodded, not letting go of Keith’s hand. Shiro wasn’t sure if he ever would be able to let go again. 

“How did you know I was here?” Keith asked as he grabbed a clean towel from his closet.  
“I hacked into Garrison’s mainframe,” Shiro said. “They keep all the university bills on file. It took a little sifting through, but I found you.”  
Keith handed him the towel. They were standing so close in Keith’s little room that the dorm felt large, like there was a whole universe around them and they were both too close and not close enough. Keith stepped back.  
“The bathroom’s through there,” Keith said, pointing to the door on the side of his room. “There’s some clothes in there that you can wear.”  
Shiro nodded. He didn’t want to leave the room, but he knew that he smelled like stale airplane and his skin was dry from traveling. He wanted to lean down to kiss Keith, but he didn’t. It wasn’t right to come back after all this time, unannounced, and expect that Keith had waited for him. For all he knew, there could be someone else.  
Keith sat on his bed when Shiro disappeared through the bathroom door. Should he hide the folded flag? Should he put away the pictures from the envelope that Keith had taken? Should he give back the dog tags?  
He was lost in thought, unmoving, and didn’t notice the shower turn off. His head snapped up when Shiro re-entered, and there was still that initial shock, the feeling that this man was dead an hour ago, and Keith wanted to hold him again. He wanted to hold him and never let him go. Never again.  
“May I sit down?” Shiro asked, sheepishly moving toward the bed.  
Keith nodded, a blush on his face. Shiro’s messy hair was damp and falling in his eyes. He was wearing a pair of Keith’s university sweatpants and the sweatshirt that Keith had stolen that day in the Garrison.  
“It’s good to have you back,” Keith said, his voice a bare whisper.  
“It’s good to be back,” Shiro answered. He sounded so much more sure of himself than Keith did.  
They sat next to each other, the space between them caving like a valley, the silence as vast as the desert that they’d both left.  
“I know this isn’t fair,” Shiro began, “but I need you to know. I still love you. I never stopped loving you, the whole time I was gone I just wanted to get back to you.”  
“Not fair?” Keith asked.  
“If you met someone, while I was,” Shiro paused, trying to find the right words. Keith stared, not understanding what Shiro was getting at. “For all intents and purposes, dead, that’s okay. I don’t expect that we’ll go back to what we were before. I know that a lot of time has passed. I’ll understand if you moved on.”  
“Moved on?” Keith asked. “Shiro,” Keith paused, looking toward his dresser. Shiro looked too.  
“Is that?” Shiro began, looking at the cased flag.  
Keith nodded. He pulled Shiro’s dog tags from beneath his shirt, resting them on his palm so that Shiro could see them properly.  
“I was always carrying you with me,” Keith said. “I couldn’t ever let go. I didn’t want to move on.”  
Shiro leaned in, pressing his forehead against Keith’s. He could feel Keith’s breathe on his lips.  
“Kiss me?” Keith asked, letting Shiro make the decision, letting him take the lead. And he did. He leaned in, pressing his mouth tight to Keith’s. Their teeth clacked together, but neither of them pulled away. They just pressed closer together. Keith put an arm around Shiro’s shoulders and pulled him closer.  
Their kiss felt strange at first, too desperate, too much teeth and not enough air. But it soon fell into a rhythm that they both recognized and missed desperately. Shiro’s arm wrapped around Keith’s waist as they leaned back into the bed, Keith pushing him down lightly, and laying above him.  
“Is this okay?” Keith whispered, pulling away from Shiro’s lips only far enough to speak.  
“This is everything I’ve dreamt of for the past year,” Shiro answered, reaching for another kiss, pulling Keith closer.  
They stayed like that for a long time, kissing and whispering ‘I love you’s to each other. Keith’s hands wandered from Shiro’s damp hair, to his jaw. They wandered down to his chest and stomach, teasing at the hem of Shiro’s sweatshirt. Then they wandered back up, fanning over his collarbone and toward Shiro’s right arm.  
Shiro froze as Keith’s hand moved closer to the missing limb. He sat up abruptly, Keith falling to his side on the bed.  
“We should cool off,” Shiro said, not looking at Keith.  
Keith was silent for a moment, watching as Shiro turned to put his feet onto the cold linoleum floor.  
“Shiro,” Keith asked, he wanted to reach out and walk his fingers along the back of Shiro’s sweatshirt, but he respected Shiro’s sudden halt in action. “What’s wrong?”  
“We shouldn’t,” he paused. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he continued. “I should give you time to think about this. I’m taking advantage.”  
Keith sat up. He rested his cheek on Shiro’s broad shoulders.  
“Nothing could have happened that would make me change my mind about this,” Keith said. “But we’ll wait, if that’s what you want, if that makes you more comfortable with my decision. I just want you to know, time won’t change anything. I have nothing I need to think about. I love you and I will always love you, no matter what.”  
“I’m damaged, Keith,” Shiro said, his hand moving to his right shoulder. “I don’t want you to have to settle for someone who isn’t complete.”  
“Some of the best men we know have had something taken away by battle,” Keith said, remembering all of the veterans that passed through Garrison, remembering all the heroes. “You would never think of them as incomplete, Shiro. So don’t you dare think about yourself that way. You didn’t come back from this as any less.”  
Shiro turned his head, looking back at Keith.  
“You can change your mind,” Shiro said. “You can always change your mind.”  
“No, I can’t. I could never change my mind about you,” Keith reassured. 

Not long after that, the two lay down together and Shiro fell asleep. Keith watched as Shiro slept, his eyelids twitching and his eyebrows knitting together tightly. He didn’t want to know what Shiro was dreaming of. He didn’t want to see what Shiro had seen. He just wanted it all to go away. Keith ran his fingers lightly over Shiro’s eyebrows, smoothing out the tenseness. He kissed his eyelids. He brought Shiro’s hand to his own heart, letting him feel the familiar heartbeat.  
He remembered the last time he’d seen Shiro, hugging him chastely in an airport in the desert. It was fall then, though it was hard to tell. The September heat still scorched the desert that they inhabited. It felt like any other day, and Keith had no doubt that they’d be seeing each other again soon.  
It was fall again. It had been a few months past a year and Shiro came back. It wasn’t the hot beginning of fall that Shiro had last seen, but instead a fall where leaves were cracked on the ground and the threat of snow was just around the corner, hiding in every heavy cloud. He came back after he’d been announced dead. He came back. He came back. He came back.  
Keith watched Shiro’s breaths, each rise and fall of his chest, and he could no longer find the familiar pattern. The smooth, strong beats of breath had turned into a raging and ragged intake of worry and exhale of fear. He was waging a war inside his head, and all Keith could do was let him rest. But he was there, crammed into the small bed and pressed flush against Keith.  
“He came back,” Keith whispered to himself, his voice quiet, a small smile on his lips. He was telling himself that this was real, that Shiro was lying on the bed in his dorm that he was safe and here, he was saying it but he didn’t always believe it. He pressed closer to Shiro, feeling his body heat and smelling his wet hair.  
His chest was still as tight as it’d been since he got the news. It was tight like he was bound in rope and wire. It whispered familiar words back into his ears.  
Missing. Presumed Dead. Dismembered body parts found. Identified. Dead. Dead. Dead.  
Keith drew back, looking away from the sleeping body. He clutched at the metal tags that hung from his neck. They were warm on his skin, hidden beneath his shirt.  
“He came back,” he whispered again, his hands trembling.  
A small knock on the door woke Shiro from his sleep. He jerked out of bed, his fist up, ready for a fight. Keith lightly rest his hands on Shiro’s back, and whispered soothingly.  
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here.” He watched as Shiro’s fierce eyes turned to fear, then worry.  
“Shhhh,” Keith said, crossing over Shiro to get out of bed. The knock came on the door again. “Its just Pidge, a friend. Go back to sleep. I’m right here.” He pressed Shiro firmly down with a hand on his chest and Shiro complied, falling back against the pillow and falling quickly back to sleep.  
Keith cracked open the door and stepped outside. 

“Who was that?” Shiro asked when Keith climbed back over him into bed.  
“Pidge. They’re nice. A bit of a pain, but sweet, just checking up on me. It’s kind of their thing.” Keith whispered back.  
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Shiro said. “I wanted to ask about you. I wanted to know how you were doing. I want to know about your new friends and your new life. I want to know everything.”  
Keith settled into the bed behind Shiro. He drew himself as close to Shiro as he could possibly get. He wrapped his arms around Shiro’s back, kissing his shoulders.  
“We can talk about it in the morning,” Keith said, his lips moving against Shiro’s sweatshirt. “For now, we’ll rest. We have time.”  
“You’re right,” Shiro sighed, his eyes falling back to a close. “We have all the time in the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE let me know if I missed any typos/have any grammatical errors. I'm pretty bad at spotting them so it's SUPER appreciated if you let me know if you see any!
> 
> ALSO I know NOTHING about the military/marines so if you see stuff that is just 100% wrong, you can also tell me how to fix that haha


End file.
